From CNN:
When Linda Cangemi of Grenada Hills, Calif., first started wearing eyeglasses with multi-focal lenses, she had to learn to move her head in a whole new way to see things up close, because the part of the glasses that corrects close-range focus is at the bottom of the lens. Cangemi, 50, found that wearing multi-focals complicates the process of grocery shopping. "If you're looking at something on the top shelf ... you have to tilt your head back or you have to adjust your distance," she says. To eliminate the inconveniences associated with multi-focal lenses, a company called eVision -- a subsidiary of the Roanoke, Va.-based Egg Factory -- is developing electronic glasses that could enable wearers to focus perfectly when looking out of any region of the lens.
The promise of electronic glasses is a long way from becoming reality, but there's a large target market for the product. Ninety-three percent of people over 45 years old have presbyopia, a stiffness of the eye's natural lens, which makes it unable to focus on fine objects in the near field. (The condition occurs as a natural part of the aging process.) Surgery can improve the condition, but most people simply resort to wearing multi-focal glasses.
EVision's vision is to transform prescription glasses into a foolproof electronic device that, unlike conventional specs, requires no special tricks or training to use effectively.
The eVision prototype uses microprocessors to control a minuscule electrical charge applied to a polymer or liquid crystal lens, which changes the lens' index of refraction to compensate for imperfections in the eye's ability to focus. The automatic-focus process begins with a tiny range-finder fitted on the glasses, which measures the distance between the wearer and the object. Software, in turn, calculates the amount of charge required to alter the index of refraction so that the wearer can focus perfectly. Optometrists would enter lens prescriptions into a computer that would program the microprocessor chip.
Certainly, major advances in medications and corrective laser surgeries that improve all manner of impaired vision are looming, but developers hope automatic-focus eyeglasses like these could be a solution for people who want less-invasive treatment. Still, according to Stanley Klein, a professor of optometry at the University of California at Berkeley, it could take decades before just about everyone with imperfect vision would have enough confidence in medical technology to forgo glasses altogether.
Physicist Dwight Duston, chief technology officer of the Egg Factory, thinks the eVision glasses eventually might be manufactured cheaply enough to be sold to consumers for the same price as bifocals, which cost about $400. But that's looking years into the future. For the moment, eVision's more pressing challenge is getting the newfangled specs to work correctly in the first place.
Unresolved technological problems include:
• Developing polymers or liquid crystals that do not make the electronic spectacles function as sunglasses. At present, the materials used in the prototype lenses absorb too much light to be useful indoors.
• Finding a place on the eyeglass frames for the microprocessor and the battery used to create the electric charge.
• Ensuring that the indices of refraction are accurate and do not distort images.
• Preventing humidity and particulate matter from affecting the performance of the charges that alter the index of refraction.
Duston expects to resolve these issues within two years, after which the glasses can move on to the development and production stage. The manufacturer with first dibs is New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson, which has that option as an eVision investor. At this point, the company has not made a commitment, but even if Johnson & Johnson decided not to manufacture the glasses, it could profit from a licensing agreement made with a third party.
"It's a good place for Johnson and Johnson to put their money," says Peter Sidebottom, a partner with the management-consulting firm of McKinsey & Co. "And it's cheaper than pursuing the technology themselves."
If these were on the market would you consider a pair? Why? why not?
When Linda Cangemi of Grenada Hills, Calif., first started wearing eyeglasses with multi-focal lenses, she had to learn to move her head in a whole new way to see things up close, because the part of the glasses that corrects close-range focus is at the bottom of the lens. Cangemi, 50, found that wearing multi-focals complicates the process of grocery shopping. "If you're looking at something on the top shelf ... you have to tilt your head back or you have to adjust your distance," she says. To eliminate the inconveniences associated with multi-focal lenses, a company called eVision -- a subsidiary of the Roanoke, Va.-based Egg Factory -- is developing electronic glasses that could enable wearers to focus perfectly when looking out of any region of the lens.
The promise of electronic glasses is a long way from becoming reality, but there's a large target market for the product. Ninety-three percent of people over 45 years old have presbyopia, a stiffness of the eye's natural lens, which makes it unable to focus on fine objects in the near field. (The condition occurs as a natural part of the aging process.) Surgery can improve the condition, but most people simply resort to wearing multi-focal glasses.
EVision's vision is to transform prescription glasses into a foolproof electronic device that, unlike conventional specs, requires no special tricks or training to use effectively.
The eVision prototype uses microprocessors to control a minuscule electrical charge applied to a polymer or liquid crystal lens, which changes the lens' index of refraction to compensate for imperfections in the eye's ability to focus. The automatic-focus process begins with a tiny range-finder fitted on the glasses, which measures the distance between the wearer and the object. Software, in turn, calculates the amount of charge required to alter the index of refraction so that the wearer can focus perfectly. Optometrists would enter lens prescriptions into a computer that would program the microprocessor chip.
Certainly, major advances in medications and corrective laser surgeries that improve all manner of impaired vision are looming, but developers hope automatic-focus eyeglasses like these could be a solution for people who want less-invasive treatment. Still, according to Stanley Klein, a professor of optometry at the University of California at Berkeley, it could take decades before just about everyone with imperfect vision would have enough confidence in medical technology to forgo glasses altogether.
Physicist Dwight Duston, chief technology officer of the Egg Factory, thinks the eVision glasses eventually might be manufactured cheaply enough to be sold to consumers for the same price as bifocals, which cost about $400. But that's looking years into the future. For the moment, eVision's more pressing challenge is getting the newfangled specs to work correctly in the first place.
Unresolved technological problems include:
• Developing polymers or liquid crystals that do not make the electronic spectacles function as sunglasses. At present, the materials used in the prototype lenses absorb too much light to be useful indoors.
• Finding a place on the eyeglass frames for the microprocessor and the battery used to create the electric charge.
• Ensuring that the indices of refraction are accurate and do not distort images.
• Preventing humidity and particulate matter from affecting the performance of the charges that alter the index of refraction.
Duston expects to resolve these issues within two years, after which the glasses can move on to the development and production stage. The manufacturer with first dibs is New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson, which has that option as an eVision investor. At this point, the company has not made a commitment, but even if Johnson & Johnson decided not to manufacture the glasses, it could profit from a licensing agreement made with a third party.
"It's a good place for Johnson and Johnson to put their money," says Peter Sidebottom, a partner with the management-consulting firm of McKinsey & Co. "And it's cheaper than pursuing the technology themselves."
If these were on the market would you consider a pair? Why? why not?
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